Combustion as a measure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas well blowouts

Marvin Du

doi:10.5055/jem.0500

Authors

Marvin Du

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5055/jem.0500

Keywords:

emergency response, global warming, gas well blowout

Abstract

Natural gas well blowouts can release a large amount of methane along with other greenhouse gases. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the global warming potential (GWP) of fossil methane is 30 times higher than that of carbon dioxide in a 100-year time horizon. Here, we show that combustion can be used as a means to significantly reduce the global warming effect of greenhouse emissions from gas well blowouts: up to 90 percent of the effect can be eliminated by combusting the released natural gas. The 2015 Aliso Canyon storage well blowout is used as an example.

Author Biography

Marvin Du

Franklin High School, Elk Grove, California; Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California

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